Thoughts about skating and the practice of everyday life

Step it up

Well, not yet. I got back on the ice last week after three weeks off, and it was pretty sad.

I heard a podcast interview with Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield who was on the International Space Station for nearly a year and a half. He said that after only a week or two in space, urine tests indicated that he was losing calcium and other minerals because his body realized that it didn’t need those weight-bearing bones to get around.

I don’t think that’s what happened to me (though we did spend quite a bit of time in the car). I did spend some time on the elliptical when I had access to one, plus did some hiking and lots of walking in between.

But not skating, so when I got back on I felt like all my skating muscles were offline. So I focused on just trying to keep my hips aligned and my weight over the correct part of my blade. This meant going back to some really basic exercises and trying to do everything as if I were a stick-like creature without the ability to hitch up or drop my hips (which is useful in many ways, but can get in the way of skating).

I just wrote more detail about this, but somehow when I tried to save it things went haywire. So I’ll just load up some pictures and hope for the best as I return to the ice.

She’s back, she’s ready, she’s rested! I’ve been off ice a while myself. Might be a good thing. Haven’t yet pinned my coach down to a mutually convenient summer lesson time. Too many skater camps chopping up the schedule!